1. Field of the Invention
In general this invention relates to brushing, scrubbing and general cleaning, and more particularly to a hand held scraper for removing snow and ice and the like from a relatively smooth surface such as an automobile windshield.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hand held ice scrapers are generally of one piece construction having a scraping edge. Often the scraping edge will have fingers or slits for abrading or chipping the ice.
One such scraper for example, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,111 of Feb. 27, 1979 issued to Hopkins et al., in which there is described a one piece scraper having a handle and a straight edge scraping surface displaced below the handle by means of a curved intermediate section. The scraping edge is angled so that the optimum scraping angle is made when the hand of the user is spaced safely from the surface of the ice being removed.
Another invention, U.S. Pat. No. 4,164,801 of Aug. 21, 1979 issued to Thomas, teaches an ice scraper similar to that just described which however includes several independent, relatively flexible fingers, formed as part of the scraping surface to induce formation of fractures in the ice while scraping. The fingers also aid in conforming to an irregular surface being scraped. Such fingers, however, allow discontinuity in the straight scraping edge, leaving tracks of snow and ice particles behind on the surface being cleaned.
A chopping and scraping instrument is described by U.S. Pat. No. 2,719,316 of Oct. 4, 1955 issued to A. K. Hauser wherein the instrument comprises a relatively thin substantially rigid flat hand held paddle shaped member with a scalloped scraping edge. Such a device provides a more aggressive surface for abrading the ice to enable its break up. However, the sraight edge again is sacrificed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,316 of Oct. 24, 1978 issued to Perry describes a hand held device for scraping ice or frost from vehicle windows and windshields, comprising of an essentially flat flexible member, smooth on one side and having a series of parallel recesses running perpendicular to the scraping edge, located on the other side. The scraping edge is concave along its edge so that the tool presents at one aspect a sharp scraping edge and flipped over, presents narrow sharp cutting edges located on a straight line. In operation the tool is held between the forefingers and the thumb and forced across the iced surface at a low angle. This device offers less protection than the Hopkins et al. device for prevention of injury to the users hand by the roughened ice.
A further improvement in the Hopkins device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,476 of June 30, 1981 issued to Hopkins et al., in which the flexible fingers are joined by a continuous flexible edge that is a few thousandths of an inch thick. The device thus provides an unbroken edge for cleaner scraping of the iced surface, and fingers for abrading and chipping of the ice. The blade is continuous but relatively breakable because the slots forming the fingers extend down to the edge which also serves as a thin flexible membrane to permit the fingers to move up and down during operation.
Presently hand held ice and snow scraping tools may be found which variously provide a straight edge for scraping, a second surface for abrading and a handle angled away from the surface being scraped to provide some measure of safety for the user's hand.
Regardless of the tool used, users are often faced with the prospect of scraped hands or bruised knuckles, soiled cuffs and wet watches. Furthermore tools with handles long enough to allow some distance between the user's hand and the ice are difficult to conveniently store in a vehicle for ready access.
The present invention is a system provided to overcome these difficulties and to provide additional benefits.